Reading and Fibrecrafts

First attempt at quilting #2

And it’s finished! I defeated the sewing machine gremlins and made some buttonholes for my cushion cover. This is the finished item.

My scrap piece of fabric, that was being used to try and do buttonholes is now looking a bit tatty. It took quite a few attempts to get it right.

The problem was that I wasn’t pulling the buttonhole lever down far enough. You have to pull it down and then push it gently back until it clicks into position. Mine would only click if you pulled it halfway down, so I assumed that it was in the right place. While I was fiddling with the machine, I realised that it had to be all the way down as it was when it touched the buttonhole foot, that the machine knew to start stitching back the other way. This would be why it was only sewing a straight line before, but most of the time it won’t click back if it’s in the right position so you have to gently hold it back. I got there in the end though and managed to do some fairly reasonable buttonholes.

They’re not perfect, and I did have a couple of issues with the two end ones, which is why I’m not showing them to you. I had to do quite a bit of tweaking to get them fairly even, adjusting stitch length and a screw at the back of the machine. I’m quite pleased with the result though.

It’s quite small as cushion covers go so I do need to get or make an insert for it. For the purposes of taking a photo though, I stuffed it with toy filling. It’s been a bit of a learning curve, with my first quilting and first buttonholes but I’ll feel more confident when I make the next one.